I. What is a tree? -- 1. Trees in mind : simple questions with complicated answers -- 2. Keeping track -- 3. How trees became -- 4. Wood -- II. All the trees in the world -- 5. Trees without flowers : the conifers -- 6. Trees with flowers : magnolias and other primitives -- 7. From palms and screw pines to yuccas and bamboos : the monocot trees -- 8. Thoroughly modern broadleaves -- 9. From oaks to mangoes : the glorious invention of rose-like eudicots -- 10. From handkerchief trees to teak : the daisy-like eudicots -- III. The life of trees -- 11. How trees live -- 12. Which trees live where, and why -- 13. The social life of trees : war or peace? -- IV. Trees and us -- 14. The future with trees.

Illustrations: The Buddha receiving enlightenment under a peepul tree -- Judas tree -- Jungle scene -- Dicksonia -- All land plants graph -- Cycad -- Ginkgo -- Young yew -- Bristlecone pine -- Juniper -- Magnolias and other primitives -- Tulip tree -- The flowering plant orders -- Dragon tree -- The monocots -- Young royal palm -- Double coconut palm -- Bamboos -- Traveler's palm -- Large cacti -- The eudicots -- Baobab -- The rosids -- Banyan -- Beech -- Birch -- Handkerchief tree -- The asterids -- Cannonball tree -- Teak -- Holly -- Mangroves -- Coastal redwoods rerooting themselves -- Continental drift -- Fig -- Bat pollination -- The syconium (fruit) of a fig -- Agroforestry.